820 - 'SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE CROSSHAIRS”

 In this program, Hazel Henderson explores with NASA Chief Scientist Dennis Bushnell the exploding use of social media and addictive behaviors of users leading to loss of privacy, autonomy and jobs.  They discuss all these issues of psychographic targeting of groups using big, data and proprietary algorithms, which are sold to data brokers and advertisers.  They review the new efforts to protect users and voters, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe, attempting to curb the misuse of user’s private information with heavy fines. They   look at the other problems including government surveillance and toxic content: hate speech, biased algorithms, terrorist recruiting sites, Russian trolling and its influence on US and European elections.  Many proposals for how individuals can protect themselves are also discussed, even though this burden must also be shared by the corporations and government agencies as well.